STORYTELLER, a storyteller. A soothing presence. Male or female, doesn't matter, as long as hugs are inspired.

BRIDE, the "perfect" bride.

GROOM, the "perfect" groom.

SCENE

A land where grass is always green, the sun is always shining, and fences are always white picket.

TIME

A sunny day in sunny June, the height of the perfect wedding season. In Vermont.

[Lights up on the STORYTELLER reading from a leather-bound volume with gilded pages.]

STORYTELLER: (closing the volume) The End. Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite. What? You want to hear another one? But it’s a school night. Okay, okay, just this once. I’m such a pushover. What type of story shall we hear? (ad lib. if the audience yells out suggestions) How about a fairy tale for our times? A field of dreams fenced in by white picket, a story of the young man and woman we all hope to be someday? Too bad, that’s what you’re getting.

(The STORYTELLER opens the volume back up. Lights up on BRIDE and GROOM in traditional garb standing on top of a wedding cake.)

Once upon a time there was a young woman, pretty as a day in June.

(The BRIDE does the royal wave.)

A young man stood by her side, smart as a whip and handsome as a polo horse.

(The GROOM salutes.)

They met in high school and fell in love on a merry day in May.

(The BRIDE and GROOM whisper to each other.)

Before long, the young man dropped to his knee, pulled a diamond from his pocket, and won the young woman’s hand in marriage.

BRIDE: Uh, excuse us, Mr. Storyteller?

(The STORYTELLER looks back at them, confused. The BRIDE and GROOM smile and wave. The STORYTELLER waves back.)

STORYTELLER: Moving right along. With the blessings of their compatible

BRIDE: Mr. Storyteller!

STORYTELLER: Excuse me a moment. (to BRIDE) Yes, what is it?

BRIDE: We didn’t exactly meet in high school.

STORYTELLER: Yes you did, it says so right here.

BRIDE: We met in a bar.

GROOM: And we dated on and off for five years while she experimented with foreigners.

STORYTELLER: How nice. Well. For our purposes, let’s say you met in high school, shall we? (back to the kids) So. With the blessings of their compatible families, the young man and woman were to be Bride and Groom.

BRIDE: (to GROOM) Wait a minute. As I recall, you kept breaking it off.

GROOM: What?

BRIDE: Yeah. Then you’d want me back the minute I had a new boyfriend.

GROOM: You certainly didn’t waste any time running into the arms of the first guy who had an accent.

STORYTELLER: (to BRIDE and GROOM) Sssssh. Let’s don’t argue in front of the impressionable youngsters. (to children) The bride soon set in on the wedding preparations.

BRIDE: (to GROOM) I never realized you were a racist.

GROOM: I’m not, I was fine with the fact you’d slept with black men.

BRIDE: You’re assuming that “racism” automatically refers to African-Americans. Isn’t that a form of racism itself?

STORYTELLER: Excuse me, ma’am, sir, firmie those bouches so I can return to the story thank you.

GROOM: By all means. Don’t let anything silly like our issues get in your way.

STORYTELLER: Look, will you play along? The children will have ample opportunity to be disillusioned later, let’s just have a nice bedtime story, okay? Okay. (to the children) AS I WAS SAYING, the preparations. They were to be married in a beautiful church

GROOM: (under his breath) Drive-thru chapel in Vegas.

STORYTELLER: --followed by an elegant reception at an old inn in
Vermont
.

BRIDE: (under her breath) Back room at the Star Dust Lounge.

STORYTELLER: The bride put Martha Stewart to shame as she had the evening designed to the last detail

GROOM: (to BRIDE) Ha! That really sounds like you.

STORYTELLER: --from the linen napkins to the centerpieces of purple freesia and Italian ruscus.

BRIDE: (to GROOM) I think he was invited to someone else’s wedding.

GROOM: And why is he assuming the bride always has the taste? Does it never occur to anyone that the groom might want to participate? I worked my way through law school as a floral designer, that’s how I know freesia is all wrong for a centerpiece, except maybe as an accent flower.

BRIDE: You were a floral designer?

GROOM: You need to base your arrangement on a more substantial bloom, like a lily or an orchid.

BRIDE: Brad, is there something you want to tell me?

STORYTELLER: Actually, there is something I want to tell these youngsters so they can get to bed at a decent hour. THE STORY.

BRIDE: Well huffy huff huff.

STORYTELLER: SO, they had their flawless reception for 300 guests at a turn-of-the-century inn in
Vermont


BRIDE: You know, we’re not from
Vermont
. We’ve never even been to
Vermont
.

STORYTELLER: --at which all had a delightful time.

GROOM: (to BRIDE) What do you mean is there something I want to tell you?

STORYTELLER: Immediately following the splendid reception

BRIDE: I mean, is there something you haven’t been honest with me about? With yourself about?

GROOM: Like what?

STORYTELLER: The bride, at the tender age of 24

(The GROOM laughs out loud.)

WHAT? WHAT’S SO FUNNY?

GROOM: She’s not even close to 24.

STORYTELLER: Now just wait a minute here, Buster Brown, whose story is this?

BRIDE/GROOM: Ours.

STORYTELLER: Wrong. This is a fairy tale, I’m going for prototypes.

BRIDE: But I’m 35.

STORYTELLER: In this story, you’re 24. The average American woman gets married at 24.

BRIDE: How old’s that make him?

STORYTELLER: 27. Why, how old is he really?

GROOM: I’m the one that’s 24.

STORYTELLER: Isn’t that a little young to be getting married?

BRIDE: How come 24’s okay for me but not for him?

STORYTELLER: You’re the woman. You’re supposed to be younger.

BRIDE: Jesus.

STORYTELLER: Now, before I was interrupted for the umpteenth time, boys and girls, I was saying that after the reception, the 24-year-old bride was whisked away in a horse-drawn carriage by her 27-year-old Prince Charming.

BRIDE: Whisked away where?

STORYTELLER: I don’t know. To... the... airport.

BRIDE: Which one?

STORYTELLER: The Airport of...
Vermont
.

BRIDE: There’s one in
Burlington
and one in
Montpelier
.

GROOM: How did you know that?

BRIDE: I majored in geography.

GROOM: You did?

BRIDE: (to STORYTELLER) So Mr. Fancy Pants, which one was it?

STORYTELLER: The one where you caught your flight to
Hawaii
for your honeymoon.

BRIDE: This whole fairy tale is completely out of hand. Anyone knows there’s no flights from
Vermont
to
Hawaii
. You have to fly through
Logan
or LAX. Or both. And anyway, I highly doubt they’d let the horses in the terminal.

STORYTELLER: Oh, for God’s sake, what’s the big deal in telling the children a nice little story?

BRIDE: No one’s life turns out like that. How many of those kids will live up to your version of the story? None! They can’t, it’s too much pressure. It’s like why Catholic women are all messed up, you can’t be a virgin AND be a mother. And Brad, I probably shouldn’t have married you to begin with.

GROOM: Shayna, how can you say that?

BRIDE: You’re probably gay.

GROOM: What?

BRIDE: Oh c’mon, how many straight male floral designers do you know?

GROOM: That’s what you thought I needed to be honest about?

BRIDE: You didn’t even know I majored in Geography! Listen, if we’re talking averages here, most people don’t get married in
Vermont
. They get married in their one-horse hometowns that have WalMarts and bad zoning.

STORYTELLER: What’s wrong with that?

BRIDE: NOTHING. THAT’S MY POINT. MOST people do get married in their hometowns. MOST people cheat on their spouses or end up in counseling or sell everything they own to get into a lousy nursing home. Put that in your fairy tale and smoke it.

STORYTELLER: Fine. I’ve had it. You want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the whole enchilada, the proverbial hook, line, and sinker? Well far be it from me to give these little souls something to which to aspire.

BRIDE/GROOM: Do it! Do it! (ad lib.)

STORYTELLER: I’m warning you, it won’t be pretty.

BRIDE/GROOM: We stand warned.

STORYTELLER: I’m such a pushover.

(opens the volume back up)

Once upon a time in a trailer park not so far away, there lived a woman approaching middle age who drank a lot of bourbon, smoked a pack a day, hung out in places where they throw peanut shells on the floor

BRIDE: All right already.

STORYTELLER: --and a young, slightly effeminate man who took it up the ass once from a fellow Eagle Scout, but since it only happened once when he was 17 and drunk on Kahlua, he still considered himself straight.

GROOM: Hey hey hey.

STORYTELLER: The woman and the man met in a bar one night where they got drunk and slept together afterwards at her place. Since the woman felt guilty about the one-night stand, she felt she needed to make a legitimate relationship out of the encounter to justify the sex, even though she really prefers black men. To stay deep in the dark closet, the man proposed to the woman, and since she’s 35 and, let’s face it, not getting any younger, she accepted his pathetic offer because it was a real ego boost to have snagged a hot stud eleven years younger than she, even if he does have the occasional problem getting a stiffy with her because he’s really gay. Although the man offered to plan the entire wedding with his best friend Steve, the woman insisted they hire a horse-drawn carriage to drop them off at the Airport of Vermont, from which they took six connecting flights to Las Vegas to get married by an Elvis impersonator. To celebrate, they showed up at the Star Dust Lounge, at which they bought all the bar patrons cheeseballs and Budweiser. When they arrived back home in Weehawken, New Jersey, the Groom, unable to suppress his inner self for a moment longer, took up with a drag queen from SoHo, and the Bride, realizing she’d never be a mother, consoled herself with vodka and Xanax and died of a somewhat accidental overdose three years later. The Groom, now 27, took up wearing cowboy hats and chaps, and made the unfortunate mistake of traveling to Wyoming on business where he was dragged to his death behind a 4x4 by a bunch of homophobic rednecks. The drag queen wrote a show about the three of them in which he played all the parts, won a Genius Grant, and landed his own talk show on New York City cable access.

(shuts book, exits)

I bid you good night and sweet dreams, children. The End.

BRIDE/GROOM: (ad lib., following the STORYTELLER off) Uh, Mr. Storyteller, wait, it’s okay, you can tell the other version, etc.

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that The Wedding Story is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional and amateur stage performing, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.